_The Reine Claude or Green Gage Plums._—This group is so distinctive in several characters that some botanists and pomologists separate it from other Domestica plums as a sub-species or species[35] and in common parlance its numerous varieties are very generally grouped together as “green gages” as if it were quite a distinct fruit from other plums. It comprises a considerable number of relatively small, round, mostly green or golden plums of so high quality as to make them standards in this respect for all plums. The Reine Claude is one of the oldest types of which there are records. Its varieties reproduce themselves without much variation from seed though there are a few sorts, possibly crosses with some other group, which are doubtfully referred to the Reine Claudes. The later history of these plums is most interesting and is reliable, for the group is recognized and discussed by almost every European or American pomologist who has written in three centuries.[36] The early history is not so well known. Where the Reine Claude plums originated no one knows. Koch[37] says he has eaten wild plums in the Trans-Caucasian region, which must be recorded with the Reine Claudes, but on the next page he advances the theory that the group is a hybrid between _Prunus domestica_ and _Prunus insititia_. Schneider[38] puts the Reine Claudes in _Prunus insititia_. The group seems to be a connecting link between the two species named above, having so many characters in common with each that it is exceedingly difficult to choose between the two as possible parent species. _Prunus domestica_ probably originated in the Caucasian or Caspian region, and it is likely, as Koch suggests, that the Reine Claudes were brought from there. This is substantiated by the early pomologists, who say these plums came originally from Armenia and were known as the Armenian plums, coming eventually by the way of Greece to Italy. If this statement of its origin be true, Columella[39] knew the fruit, for he says: —“then are the wicker baskets cramm’d With Damask and Armenian and Wax plums.” And so, too, Pliny refers to them[40] in his enumeration of varieties in which he says: “the Armenian, also an exotic from foreign parts, the only one among the plums that recommends itself by its smell.”